Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => All things menopause => Topic started by: Mollymoo on July 26, 2022, 04:35:09 AM
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Morning Ladies
A question that is always on my mind about HRT and menopause is that if HRT has so many benefits to our health I.e protects bones and heart disease then why is all menopausal women not on HRT. I have also seen on many websites that women on HrT live longer than women that don't. Again if that's the case everybody would want to take HrT.
Would love to hear views and opinions on this as I am always debating and questioning should I be taking it or not.
:o
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Good question.
I work with a few women who are in the menopausal bracket.
None take HRT and all are as sharp as pins.
I don’t believe that women who take HRT, live longer personally, but statistics can be used to prove or disprove anything!
I only take HRT for bladder issues. VA is series and if you get struck down with that and left untreated, life is grim.
The long and short of it is, that if you suffer debilitating symptoms, which affect quality of life, why suffer, when HRT is readily available?
Not all women do suffer, so they don’t take feel the need to take HRT.
HRT is complicated and sometimes comes with unwanted side effects.
If you are happily ticking away, without HRT, then I doubt you are going to think too much about the long term health benefits? After all, Gps are not exactly pushing HRT onto women. More, women are pushing the gps to prescribe BECAUSE of the reported long term health benefits (and to alleviate debilitating symptoms).
The whole issue is entirely subjective.
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Thankyou Nas
I take HRT because a very early menopause gave me osteopenia. Since taking HRT my bone health has improved slightly. It's not got worse so that's great amd it must be doing something, however I do suffer with extreme fatigue, mood swings and snappiness which HRT is not helping.
I am now at the age of natural menopause and feel that if my bones, heart and quality of life was eing protected by HRT I would take it forever but as lots of others don't need to take it I wonder if its necessary.
If their was no risks we would have nothing to loose and everybody would take it in the hope that menopausal woman would live a very long happy life but its not that simple and anxious people like me worry about what's right and what's not.
I really wish I was a man ha ha
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Men have problems too ...........
I think that my body has adjusted it's self. Apart from vaginal atrophy treatment I have been lucky enough not to suffer anything apart from natural ageing. My periods waxed and waned for a few years B4 stopping. I had a few months flushing after my evening bath with intense itching on my back/shoulder area. After that my body settled.
As with any medical condition, if there aren't associated symptoms 1 wouldn't think to ask for treatment.
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Same here CLKD, the atrophy and age related. I often wonder though why some women have problems and others are OK. I didn't have VA until 5 years post meno, so what had kept me ok those 5 years after I'd stopped my periods and ovulation?
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The people that don't take hrt but have VA Do you take medication for your VA
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I think we might reach a point in future where women at age 40 have a health check and are counselled to start HRT at some point when needed and it might indeed become the norm for all women to be on HRT post-menopause unless there is a health reason they can't take it.
But there are a lot of attitudes to change before then.
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The trouble with HRT it’s so complex and every woman’s experience can be completely different to the other. Also women who experience no problems with the menopause don’t think about seeking help for what might come in the future. I didn’t until I started to get VA symptoms and now I am getting the treatment for that and soon I will be able to buy it over the counter if I want!
There is also the interference in your life when you start to go on repeat prescriptions, always being called in for reviews, some will love this attention but others will find it anxiety creating and a loss of freedom over their own health.
HRT is not for everyone, women I know would prefer not to bother until they develop symptoms that are impacting on their everyday life its then they will seek help. The treatment is there for us all to take advantage of if and when we want it.
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The people that don't take hrt but have VA Do you take medication for your VA
4 me VA begin with intermittent repeated urine infection-type symptoms: needing to pee every few moments, soreness in the bladder with fullness under the belly. After 2 years my GP was furious that no urine samples had been sent to a Lab. to be tested, the ABs helped each time (5 in 2 years) but 'ovestin' eased all the symptoms. When I get the need2P I up the 'ovestin' applications as well as taking 2 Nurofen 3 times a day.
I haven't required other types of HRT. Fortunately!
I don't see the point in taking any medication on an 'in case' basis. Hopefully over the years more will be learnt about how ladies react to various treatment regimes. If people are less mobile then maybe an over all regime would lessen any risk of osteoporosis (wheelchair users for example).
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Thankyou Nas
I take HRT because a very early menopause gave me osteopenia. Since taking HRT my bone health has improved slightly. It's not got worse so that's great amd it must be doing something, however I do suffer with extreme fatigue, mood swings and snappiness which HRT is not helping.
I would suggest increasing your oestrogen as the dose you are on isn't controlling your symptoms. Perhaps try to find your optimum levels before giving up? Personally if I had osteopenia I would stay on it for life as I would do anything I could to prevent osteoporosis.
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I agree, I wouldn't even think about stopping it under those circumstances. Women lose about 1% of bone mass per year after menopause and for a few years around menopause, that is accelerated. If you're staying the same with the bone mass, HRT is helping massively.
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The people that don't take hrt but have VA Do you take medication for your VA
Yes, most take local estrogen Vagifem and Ovestin. Also use moisturisors.
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Same here, got symptoms of VA and couldn't live with it. No alternative but to get it treated pronto, and its for life!
That's Vagifem, Ovestin and moisturiser every day.
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Hello ladies.
I wonder how many women experience symptoms of the menopause but attribute them to natural aging or other circumstances. We often hear on the forum of women who have been tolerating headaches or muscle pain for example for years but these issues resolve if they begin HRT.
I would like to know more about the action of our sex hormones so that we can investigate other effective treatments and not be limited to HRT to stay well.
Take care ladies.
K.
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if HRT has so many benefits to our health I.e protects bones and heart disease then why is all menopausal women not on HRT.
The main reason is the total lack of education regarding menopause and HRT, largely the result of poor standards of primary care. Nearly every day on this forum someone reports back on an ignorant/unhelpful GP and that will be most women's main or even sole point of contact with healthcare.
If GPs don't help women confront menopausal symptoms and educate them on HRT and its short- and, crucially, long-term benefits (rather than either ignoring them or mindlessly prescribing anti-depressants just to cite one example) then patients won't be aware.
I often have this discussion with my mother who didn't take HRT and has the classic triple whammy of osteoporosis/cognitive impairment/heart disease, asking her why she didn't take it (and I distinctly remember when she was in her 50s that it was quite talked about, even in the mainstream press before the backlash as some high profile women like Thatcher and Miriam Stoppard and lots of 'power' women took it).
Her answer is always 'no one ever mentioned it' and to some extent that model of expecting the doctor to take the lead and be the "expert" is still prevalent though things are slowly changing.
At the same time, I often ask myself why so many people - men and women - don't do many other things that have been clearly shown to improve health both in terms of longevity and quality and life, eg/ not smoke or drink, do a few hours of exercise a week, eat lots of vegetables, nuts, seeds etc. So many killer diseases could be prevented and decreased with those measures and I find it inconceivable that one wouldn't do these things (and taking HRT is one of them) but evidently there must be other, less rational forces that guide people's behaviour and lifestyle.
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That could be a whole topic of it's own ! but really good points.
4 me lack of exercise is laziness. When we had a dog we walked miles ::). Took her on holiday with us. Now our lives have altered a lot, we still get busy in our garden ...... but I never think to go for a walk locally.
One looks in what others put into the shopping trollies and can see why many aren't losing the weight. Also back pain could be improved by people wearing correct foot wear. There is plenty of info out there about health benefits, maybe people don't think that advice applies to them? (same as some drivers, who don't see speed limits >:( ).
Education needs to begin in Primary School though none of us looks further than the next play time ::). We had a School Nurse and the nit nurse visited once a Term. At the end of our senior school we were sent home with a box of tampons and a packet of Dr Whites. Bye Bye ::)
I think too that families are spread across the World so there isn't the chit chat about Life in general which filters down to the younger generation?
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A question that is always on my mind about HRT and menopause is that if HRT has so many benefits to our health I.e protects bones and heart disease then why is all menopausal women not on HRT.
This is big, messy knot of an issue that's difficult to unravel.
Though I do take HRT I came to it late, largely out of fear, both of worsening other conditions (hypothyroidism, migraine) & having lost Mum to breast cancer. I think both of these areas of concern are weighed up by many other women, some of whom will be deterred, as I was for a decade before starting.
Beyond individual reasons of family or personal health history, I think more general lack of take up of HRT is probably still partly connected with the persistence of understandable mistrust following the poorly interpreted & reported studies that led to widespread fear of HRT and resulted in many women coming off it 2 decades ago. Women were made afraid of taking it, their doctors were made afraid of prescribing it. With HRT effectively removed from the medical tool kit for so long, GPs were left scratching their heads to know how to help & so the needs of women at our stage of life became further relegated & neglected in the scheme of things. Though more recently advocacy for menopausal women has improved together with awareness that these studies were badly flawed, the misinformation was so damaging to the collective psyche that it's like turning round a cruise ship to set women's healthcare at midlife & beyond on a new path.
Perhaps too, the fact that so many of us lose confidence at menopause on top of feeling physically rotten, wears us down & makes us ill equipped to push for the help we need, especially when faced with resistance from those we have no choice but go to for medical help. Sometimes, unfortunately our symptoms are trivialised & dismissed by those less informed or sensitive medics who simply don't get how devastating menopause can be & this can be hard to fight against when we're physically & emotionally depleted, at our most vulnerable & unsupported.
There's also the fact as others have said, that getting HRT right can be a tricky & drawn out process so that sometimes what we take may make us feel worse rather than better, perhaps leading some women to fall at the first or repeated hurdles & deterring us from persevering. After my first brief trial of an unsuitable combi HRT 13 years ago, my then GP thought a month on one product was enough to know HRT was never going to resolve my symptoms & that was the end of it for more than another decade. As I was still so scared of it at that point, had felt even worse for the HRT & didn't know my GP was poorly informed, I didn't persevere & wasted many subsequent years struggling with very poor QOL before finally trying HRT again several years postmenopause, with other chronic conditions to manage & symptoms still showing no sign of stopping.
Perhaps for those women who feel their symptoms are bearable, even the prospect of systemic health protection for the future (bones, cardiovascular, pelvic floor, GSM etc) is not enough to allay any lingering fears or doubts or make them want to enter into the commitment of repeat monitoring, reviews, tests, endometrial scans for non-standard regimens, etc, especially when there is still contradictory reporting about the long term benefits.
Perennially underfunded, with an always heavy caseload & too few staff, the NHS also hasn't been well placed to deal with any more than fire-fighting of urgent & serious conditions, so that health promotion has become an idyllic concept seen as beyond what can be accommodated.
Maybe for some women who are otherwise healthy at menopause, without other chronic conditions to add to their load, other major life stresses - demanding jobs, ailing parents, children/teens to look after etc, there is simply not enough incentive to embark on a course of action that's still dogged by controversy & that perhaps could be seen as potentially complicating a situation they feel well enough able to live with.
There's also the sad issue of women who've been unable get the menopause support they need from the NHS for whatever reason & can't afford to go private.
In short there may be any number of understandable reasons more women who might benefit from it are not on HRT. By becoming as well informed as we can, we can all play a part in helping GPs help us if they are open to that & if not we can go to another doctor who is.
Wx
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Morning Ladies
A question that is always on my mind about HRT and menopause is that if HRT has so many benefits to our health I.e protects bones and heart disease then why is all menopausal women not on HRT. I have also seen on many websites that women on HrT live longer than women that don't. Again if that's the case everybody would want to take HrT.
Would love to hear views and opinions on this as I am always debating and questioning should I be taking it or not.
:o
Hi confused.com,
Having researched extensively on this subject, and I do mean extensively (of legitimate, science backed, quality research), and after being reluctant to “mess with my hormones”, I made the decision to try HRT to alleviate numerous debilitating systems. I’m not saying I’m totally fixed, but I think things have improved. To answer your question about whether to take it, my opinion is that unless you have a particularly medical history that makes it risky for you (not most peoples situation), I would take it. There is a lot more recent and robust research about the overall health benefits of taking HRT - including protecting bones, heart, And against mental degeneration, that it seems prudent to take it. There’s a higher incidence of Alzheimer’s in women and scientists believe hormones are a factor in this. This alone would be reason enough for me. You might like to read this link from university of east Anglia about how combined HRT reduced death in women by 9% (nil effect on oestrogen only). https://www.uea.ac.uk/news/-/article/uea-research-suggests-beneficial-impact-of-hormone-replacement-therapy
I think it’s worth saying that when it comes to Hormone REPLACEMENT Therapy (the natural variants) you are simply REPLACING what your body is now lacking. It’s your Choice and you have to feel happy with your personal choice. For me, it took me over a year to go on it due to fears and frankly years of previously bad science (the especially crap 2002 report that sent fear through every menopausal woman in the world regarding breast cancer risk: Note, the increased risk of breast cancer from HRT is LESS than if you were on combined contraceptive, drank alcohol, or overweight. I have been participating in a lot of menopause (and invariably HRT) webinars with people who know a lot more than me (several provided through work) and I do firmly believe it’s HRT positive for health for the majority of women.
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if HRT has so many benefits to our health I.e protects bones and heart disease then why is all menopausal women not on HRT.
The main reason is the total lack of education regarding menopause and HRT, largely the result of poor standards of primary care. Nearly every day on this forum someone reports back on an ignorant/unhelpful GP and that will be most women's main or even sole point of contact with healthcare.
If GPs don't help women confront menopausal symptoms and educate them on HRT and its short- and, crucially, long-term benefits (rather than either ignoring them or mindlessly prescribing anti-depressants just to cite one example) then patients won't be aware.
I often have this discussion with my mother who didn't take HRT and has the classic triple whammy of osteoporosis/cognitive impairment/heart disease, asking her why she didn't take it (and I distinctly remember when she was in her 50s that it was quite talked about, even in the mainstream press before the backlash as some high profile women like Thatcher and Miriam Stoppard and lots of 'power' women took it).
Her answer is always 'no one ever mentioned it' and to some extent that model of expecting the doctor to take the lead and be the "expert" is still prevalent though things are slowly changing.
At the same time, I often ask myself why so many people - men and women - don't do many other things that have been clearly shown to improve health both in terms of longevity and quality and life, eg/ not smoke or drink, do a few hours of exercise a week, eat lots of vegetables, nuts, seeds etc. So many killer diseases could be prevented and decreased with those measures and I find it inconceivable that one wouldn't do these things (and taking HRT is one of them) but evidently there must be other, less rational forces that guide people's behaviour and lifestyle.
Excellently put. Wholeheartedly agree. In addition, if anyone wonders why elder-health after menopause wasn’t an issue 100 years ago, most women only lived about 5 years after menopause.
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Elder health remains an issue throughout the NHS. Closing geriatric wards to put patients into 'community care' was never going to work: out of sight, out of mind. Saving the Governments of the day £Ks as they were able to close Wards. As with mental health provision, geriatric care has always been at the very bottom of the monetary scale >:(
Add to that lack of District Nurses to check up on patients at home .......... as well as many in the 'elderly' age group 'not wanting to be a nuisance' ...... it was obvious during Covid that ministers have no idea about elderly care!
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Totally agree with what Laszla wrote earlier.
If I didn’t have symptoms requiring HRT, knowing what I know now, particularly about osteoporosis I would take it anyway.
When I was quite young I lived with sick relatives whose health issues were avoidable had they not drunk far too much, ate terribly and been overweight or obese in one grandparents case. I think that’s why I try and be as healthy as possible without making it an intense focus. I’m not sure I would think about my health that much had I not seen close up very young what unhealthy living can do and how awful things like stroke, diabetes and just being obese are.
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There are other ways to combat osteoporosis - I wouldn't consider HRT if my body didn't require it, any more than I would take other medications.
I used to skip and could hoopla-hoop quite well ;D. Now I have two left feet ::)